Gradients - or "graded washes" have been a long obsession of mine.  I think watercolours excel at creating gorgeous gradients and I've spent quite a bit of time tinkering with different methods to get them just the way I like.

These are some the experiments I made while preparing to film the class.

I tried different brush sizes, paper dampness, brush stroke overlap and paint consistency.

Dry paper was not my friend at all lol!

Then I finally settled on an approach that produced even and repeatable results.
I love these pages in my sketchbook!

And it's those pages that led to me being able to produce the gradients you saw in class:

For my class cover image I included all the gradients I painted in class, as well as a wave illustration made with a graded 'splash' behind it.

And just peeking in at the top is the bottom half of an Edinburgh skyline I made with a purple gradient - you can see it more clearly here: